Stop and Stare
by frays
Summary: (slash!fic, cam&derrick, a/u) "Even as a young boy, Cameron Fisher had been told to be himself, but he never understood how he could when his true self was looked down upon."


**disclaimer: **I do not own the clique.

**a/n: **though I love slash to the moon and stars, I've never written a slash fic before, and wanted to start by writing a fic dedicated to one of my favorite people in this fandom c:

if you're against gay/slash/LGBT pairings, please turn back now instead of leaving a hateful review about how much you dislike gays—I don't want to read that, and I'm not going to listen.

**dedication:** lauren/insanities, my soul sister, and my co-shipper of cocainahol, vajato, and pooshits. because writing a crack!fic about our glorious ships would kill half the website and put the other half into a coma, I tried the next best thing.

**summary: ** "Even as a young boy, Cameron Fisher had been told to be himself, but he never understood how he could when his true self was looked down upon." cam/derrick

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_"Just be yourself."_

Even when Cameron Fisher was young, the term was translated through to him as though it was spoken in an alien language. He was never the brightest child, but he understood simple English, and he was bewildered as to how a phrase with a mere three words could be so nonsensical.

How could one be their self if they hadn't a clue who they were?

The boy with the blue and green eyes hadn't a clue who he was, and he was lost in the maze of tangled vines that made up his mind.

He had tried being loud, funny, brave, and shy, but none of the approaches had worked on making a friend. He was unsure exactly what a _friend_ was—he had never made a friend, and didn't understand what a companion would be to him.

A "friend" was supposed to be someone you could relate to, but Cam had trouble finding a way to relate to someone when he hardly understood his own mind.

When he told his parents at night that he didn't know how to make friends they simply dismissed, telling the raven-haired boy that he was young, and he would learn how to socialize naturally with age. Then, they would give him a hug, kiss his white cheeks, and send him off to play with Harris.

Harris was Cam's only friend, but Cam was content with that—he didn't feel the need to be socially accepted, and he didn't want a group of people surrounding him when he didn't know how to talk to them.

But Cameron Fisher was young, and the waves of peer pressure and insecurities had yet to wash over him.

;

_"Try and talk to new people."_

In only his first year of elementary school, Cameron Fisher was rejected by the norms of society and rejected by the people he tried to make nice with, pushed away roughly and laughed at by those around him when he tried to be himself.

He remembered the first time he had walked up to someone in kindergarten clearly, feeling the memory burned into his mind like it was branded with iron hot from the fires of loathing.

The boy had olive skin and red lips, and Cam soon found that he wasn't the best person to try and make friends with.

"Can I play with you?"

The Spanish boy looked at him, taking in Cam's lithe limbs and innocent smile, "We're playing catch. You can play if you know how." He threw the ball at Cam's stomach, laughing as Cam struggled to catch the red ball that slipped through his fingers.

"Nice eyes, weirdo." A new voice spoke up, and Cam looked down in some shame, remembering his mother calling his eyes "special".

_Who wants to be special?_

The boy with the beautiful eyes looked up for only a moment, watching as the boys playing laughed at him before his vision blurred with tears, running away as the boys laughed as to how much of a girl he was.

When he looked back amongst the laughing boys, he saw a boy with large eyes and golden hair watching him.

His brown eyes held a friendly smile.

;

_"Kids will be kids, Cam. You can't listen to them."_

Cam was about to turn eight, and he had yet to make a friend.

He had learned from his mother—though he hadn't quite understood—that children were blatant, and they spoke their mind without listening or thinking of the emotional damage they could cause. They were cruel because they were foolish, and they didn't understand how to censor their thoughts when they disliked someone.

He tried to bring in the point that _someone_ should be able to look at him without judging him; _someone_ should be able to smile at his offer of friendship and laugh along with the strange young boy.

"Why doesn't anyone like me?"

The boy with the raven hair looked up at his teacher with a soft glance, a question pertinent in his eyes. He glanced out the window to where his friends were laughing and curled his hands together, weaving his fingers together as he watched the small children screaming in delight.

His teacher avoided his eyes, and Cam watched as her chest moved with a heavy sigh. He wondered why he had made her distressed, and wanted to help the teacher with whatever was plaguing her, not knowing his misery was the root of her grief.

"Cameron, you're a sweet boy," She began slowly, grasping for a direction to take her speech in, "Life…well, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. Sometimes in life, you find friends and family, and sometimes you don't until much later. There aren't many people who take an awfully long time to find someone for them, but when you find that someone, they'll be special. You'll cherish them, and you'll know yourself from so many years alone with yourself, learning about yourself."

"But I don't know who I am."

"Then maybe it'll be another year, and maybe it'll be five years, but you'll make a friend when you're older and you find someone who can help you understand yourself. Do you hear me, Mr. Fisher?"

"I hear you."

"Come on, Cameron. I'll let you play with the building blocks until recess is over."

;

_"Cameron, no one knows who they are right away."_

Two years passed, and Cam was still alone.

The insults grew as he did, and he was called a loner and a freak. He was teased for the lightness of his skin, color of his eyes, ink of his hair, or quiet tone of his voice—people around him seemed to take every one of Cam's aspects and find a flaw in it, mocking him for it and making him wish he were different in some way.

His tenth birthday was the first time someone outside of elders and family spoke kindly to him, and it was the first time he had had someone put themselves away to defend Cam from harsh words.

"You guys are being mean—can't we all get along without making everyone else feel bad? Knock it off, you guys."

His name was Derrick Harrington, and even at ten, Cam couldn't help but notice how his eyes shone when he was happy.

"What is he, your girlfriend?"

"Are you guys gay together?"

"Derrick's gay, you guys!"

A chorus of laughter rang through the boys who were now walking away, and Cam peered curiously to the confident blonde boy, his eyes wide with some amazement.

He was expecting the brown-eyed boy to sneer at him for causing his torment or _something_, but no insult came. The blonde boy looked _happy_, and he seemed to be trying not to laugh at the amused boys walking away from them.

"I'm Cam." Cam didn't quite know how to make friends, and was a bit confused as to how to speak to people his own age, but the confident boy simply laughed.

He ran a tanned hand through his blonde hair, flashing Cam a white-toothed smile, "My name is Derrick."

;

_"Why are you so weird?"_

As they aged, Cam grew to realize that the blonde boy understood him better than he did himself.

Derrick seemed to know when Cam was angry, and he knew everything he could do that would set Cam off when he wanted to irritate him. He knew how to make him happy, and he knew the kind of joke to tell when the raven-haired boy was down so that his friend could smile again. He knew when Cam simply didn't want to speak to anyone, and he let him alone with his thoughts, but he also knew when Cam was pretending to want solitude when all he really needed was attention.

Derrick understood that Cam wasn't smart in school, and he understood that Cam seemed dumb or gullible to everyone around him, but it wasn't the case at all when he opened his eyes. Cam was a genius in the way of curiosity, and Cam understood people in a way that the kindest of people could only dream of doing.

He saw the best in people, and he knew when someone needed redemption. He understood people, but he didn't understand how to be with people. He understood the underlying values of society, and he saw the best and worst aspects of every situation he was in.

Cam knew how fucked up society was, but he chose to look at the flicker of light in the pit of withering blackness and inhumanity. He saw how terrible people could be, but instead of giving up on people, he tried harder to find someone who could understand him for who he was.

Though Derrick was merely twelve at the time, he knew that he loved Cameron Fisher.

When he told his parents, they didn't understand—they told him that it was natural to care for your friends, and they treated the subject as though they were talking to an infant asking why they didn't want their friends to die.

He knew what love was, and he knew what he felt for Cam went past a platonic care for the boy that would never care for him in the same way.

Derrick knew that he didn't have a chance at loving Cam the way he should, but he didn't care—he was _happy_ when he was with Cam, and he felt more secure than he ever had when he was with the boy with the beautiful eyes.

Life was an awful place, and though Derrick didn't have Cam's ability to look through to the best of people, he had Cam to grasp on to when the world was black and everything was falling down.

Cam was Derrick's light, and he didn't dare risk that act with some stupid act of exposure he knew would be deemed as "wrong" by both Cam and the morals of society.

Derrick didn't believe in happy endings, and knew that a light at the end of the tunnel would only lead to death when he finally grasped it.

;

_"You're just confused."_

They were sixteen, and they were entering their junior year of high school.

Derrick had pushed back his tangled emotions for the boy with the beautiful eyes, trying to believe he was content with staying next to the alluring boy. He tried to pretend that he fit under society's unwritten definition of _normal_, but he couldn't — he had tried too hard already to fit in, and he had tried too hard to act as though he was someone he was not.

When he looked to himself in the mirror, his reflection was a traitor. The mirrored image showed a man who was confident, suave, and arrogant, but Derrick knew that the image was a lie deep below what a simple reflective glass could show.

He was a boy who was in love with his best friend — the story was one written often, but in more cases than not, the boy did not love another boy.

When Derrick read of unrequited love, the tales always showed a man loving a woman, and a man falling for his female best friend. The darker tales showed a woman falling into bed with a man in a tangled mass of limbs, legs, and moans, but Derrick had trouble finding any way to relate to the love tales.

The books he turned to only pushed the fact that he was not, and would never be normal.

In every tale of unrequited love that he had laid his eyes on, the man loved a woman to death and back, and the woman grew to love him — never the second man growing to love the first. The tales were a confirmation of the rough truth of rejection he knew he would face with the man he called his best friend.

The truth was never less than bittersweet.

;

_"We'll love you no matter what."_

Even as a young boy, Cameron Fisher had been told to be himself, but he never understood how he could when his true self was looked down upon.

He was watching his strong friend organizing a pile of CD's in his room in a glassy silence, listening to the vibrations of Radiohead's music pulsing through a pair of speakers in the blonde's room.

The speakers were the only source of noise, and Cam was glad. The music and Derrick's distraction gave him some ghost of a chance to watch the man who had always intrigued him without notice or interruption, and he took liberties in the sights he assumed to be stolen.

Derrick's hands were fascinating to him.

Cam's blue and green eyes watched his tanned hands as he piled the CD's, looking curiously at the way the long fingers folded and bended over the music in a way both gentle and sturdy. His hands looked to be a tangible blend of smooth and rough touches, and Cam suddenly had the curiosity as to what they would feel like running along his body.

Cam had never been discreet, "Derrick?" Cam spoke, bringing his eyes up to his friend's face.

"Hmm?" The brown-eyed boy made no movement to look up at Cam, but his movements were noticeably slower.

"Have you ever thought about kissing me?"

The words brought Derrick's attention, and he slowly lifted his head to lock eyes with his friend. Cam saw him blow upwards with reddened lips to unmoving brush the waved blonde hair out of his doe eyes, "Excuse me?

"Have you ever thought about kissing me?" His question remained static, making no move to back away from the bold inquiry.

"Before I answer, I'd like to see what you believe my answer to be."

Cam paused slightly, snaking his tongue out to wet his lips, "I think so. Or, possibly. Not because I think so highly of myself — I don't think lowly of myself, but you just seem like you have. And that's fine with me. I've thought of it, as well, but then I've thought about the thought, and realized that it was crazy. So I stopped thinking abo—"

Somehow in his ramblings, Cam hadn't noticed Derrick stand from his organizing and take a few short strides to him, settling at a standstill in front of his friend and grasping his shoulders tightly. The move was more commanding than threatening, and Cam immediately brought his mind up to Derrick.

"I have." And a pair of lips were on Cam's, bringing the raven-haired boy's first kiss, a kiss from another man, a kiss that was wrong, and a kiss that was perfect.

The lips on his were proven to be much more experienced than his own, and before Cam could register the heat of the kiss, he found himself being walked backwards and pressed against a wall firmly.

A sound that seemed to be a mix of a moan, grunt, and gasp escaped Cam's lips, nearly too shocked to respond to the kiss, but he managed the best he could. His eyes fell closed by an automatic impulse, and his lips crushed against Derrick's as soon as the shock rolled off of him.

One of Derrick's hands was tracing Cam's spine, and the other was bolted against the wall to sturdy himself. Cam, much less stable than the experienced blonde boy, felt his knees tremble with some shock and desire both. He felt his knees beginning to buckle, and before he could slip to the floor, Derrick broke off the kiss with a long-lashed wink.

"I'll see you at school, Fisher."

;

_"Homosexuality is a sin."_

If homosexuality was wrong, was a person supposed to be wrong in their entity?

Cameron Fisher had trouble understanding the way certain people looked down on gays — he had no clue whether or not the disdain was over _who_ they were, _what_ they were doing, or _why_ they were homosexual.

People around Cam believed that he was simply confused, and going through some phase of blindly tripping among the grounds of the earth. He walked the halls, and he saw more stares that he ever had received, and he saw mouths grow silent when he walked by.

The whispers of rumors were the only words he was able to hear, and the whispers came with bets on how long the "phase" would last, or why he had "turned gay".

How could someone "turn gay" when at heart, they had been different all their life?

The insults came along with Derrick's fists to the offenders, but Cam made no such move of violence — he was peaceful, and he was partial to love rather than the route of war that Derrick took.

Perhaps that was why they fit together so well — Cam was gentle, and Derrick was rough.

In the symphonies of the soul, even the calmest of hearts needed to be brushed by a rough reality.

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_"Go kill yourself, fag."_

Cameron Blake Fisher was sure that high school would never end.

Some saw the school as a sanctuary, some saw it as a runway, some saw it as a blessing to the mind, but Cam? He found it to be a too-tight barricade of closed walls and judging stares, and he hated it.

He hated the confusion behind each glance, and he hated walking the halls and knowing that whispers circulated around he and Derrick. He hated how Derrick had to come to his rescue when harsh words were tossed to him, and he hated hiding.

He felt as though he was stripped naked, hiding in an open field, yet too timid to open himself to the world that was already watching him with resent. He was never _bold_, but wished he was — he always wished to be something that he was not, and when he prayed, he prayed to be someone else.

Anyone else.

On the days that he would throw himself onto his mattress and bite back tears, he wondered if the truth was worth it — he knew it would be easier to shield himself behind a lie, and he knew that safety was in the norm.

Then, Derrick stepped into his sight, and Cam remembered again why he was able to push against the "normal" in society and let himself find some form of happiness in the fucked up world they roamed in.

Happiness was nothing but a ray of light in a tunnel of shadows, and though it burned too brightly to hold on to forever, it was the drink of sweet misery he needed to pull himself through the cold of living.

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_"People are only gay because they wanted attention."_

Every moment of every day, Cam was watched in ways that made his skin crawl and body numb, but in a way he had learned to recognize over the aching years of tormenting eyes and watching souls.

Derrick was the sweet nothing he needed to push forward. They weren't half a skinny love like told in the books, but they were _something_, something different.

In the society they lived in, they were looked down upon for standing out in any way because people were afraid of anything _different_, and any whispers of icy reality was pushed away because everyone was too afraid to deal with a problem shoved in front of them. When they saw a difference, they tried to change it so that it would blend into their black and white society — any puzzle piece that stood out was tossed away without a second glance.

The only person that would give Cam a second glance was the man he loved, and the man true enough to open his eyes to who he truly was.

Derrick was the one to pull away Cam's thick mask, and the only one bold enough to hold Cam close so that he could know what it felt like to live in a land of dead eyes and cold souls.

The world was a clusterfuck of tangled webs of lies and misery, but Cam managed to find the soul that matched to his, and he held the brightness to his heart with a thin hope that true love was all he would ever need.

And though he knew that he needed more than Derrick to survive, it was _something_, and in the web he was intertwined in, a small nothing was enough to keep his reality from spinning into the dark.

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